Le Sigh

So I decided to do NaNoWri again this year. I'm cheating because I am actually using the goal of the project to force me to finish my rough draft of my previous NaNoWriMo. What is depressing is that I feel like I have GROSSLY overwritten my book and i'm not even halfway where I have to be. It is 80,000 plus words and I still haven't gotten to the heart of the story and I am lost.

What sucks is that the few people who have read the book thus far like it. They like the characters and the plot which makes things hard because I know at some point i am going to have to cut so much out to get it the standard young adult size. It makes it hard to keep going and yet I know I have to.

I need to have a finished novel under my belt if I want to call myself a writer still. and yet i am at a loss of sorts.